Why Cheeky Panda has designs on your normal toilet tissue

Toilet roll. It’s not that interesting, right? Or is it? Let Cheeky Panda’s bamboo-based verison take the floor.

16 October 2018

Credit: Matt Grayson

By Rachel Bishop

Toilet roll. It’s not that interesting, right? Or is it?

Let Cheeky Panda’s bamboo-based version take the floor.

The product has received praise from the likes of Dame Judi Dench and Joanna Lumley and has become so popular it has caught the attention of X-Factor bosses.

The reality show is considering featuring it in the contestants’ house and providing it for judges Simon Cowell, Louis Tomlinson, Robbie Williams and Ayda Field.

Presumably to deal with their less well-known output.

It is also currently being trailed in an NHS hospital in the hope its health benefits could reduce infections and so cut the length of time people stay in hospital.

The product behind all this comes from bamboo that grows naturally in the mountains of China’s Szechuan region.

Couple Chris Forbes and Julie Chen created the product in their quest to expand on China’s use of bamboo as a tissue product.

Credit: Matt Grayson

Cheeky Panda’s environmental consultant Alex Winyard and marketing executive Thelma Dhlovu told me the company’s success has rocketed in just under three years.

Alex said: “Sustainable products and living are really on-trend right now and we’ve seen such a huge interest from the eco warriors using it at home to businesses and then high end hotels that really like the quality of it.

“Bamboo shoots up crazy fast – whereas trees take 25 to 30 years to grow back.

“Bamboo grows a metre a day, so the degradation of the environment is way smaller.

“The bamboo we use is harvested locally and if it grows for over a year it starts to fruit and bring in diseases – it’s simply a grass that just needs to be chopped down.

“However, two things we are often asked include: ‘Are you taking away the panda’s food?’ - we’re not - it’s not the kind that pandas eat and in fact no animals live in it at all, so that’s enabled us to become the only tissue provider in the UK that has been awarded a vegan certification.

“The other thing we are asked is about the carbon footprint created to get it to the UK.

“Any tissue used in this country is typically sourced from Scandinavia or South America, for example.

“It’s not like we’re chopping down trees in Nottingham -

“It’s all found somewhere else so if that’s what stops you in switching to us it would be like saying no to the Toyota Prius when that came out - it’s a step in the right direction.”

Credit: Matt Grayson

But one thing the team weren’t expecting to find was the natural health benefits bamboo tissue has.

It’s naturally hypoallergenic and contains fewer dust particles, which reduces irritation for people who suffer with sensitive skin.

Thelma said: “We found out about those accidentally.

“When we started we purely went down the direction of sustainability and then it was through reviews on Amazon – which was the first platform we were selling on – that we heard from people with sensitive skin and those with Eczema who said it had completely disappeared.

“From source bamboo doesn’t need any pesticides when it’s growing – it naturally scares off any bugs or anything that eats it so we don’t need to use any dodgy chemicals in the manufacturing of it or the conversion process, apart from a little water bleach which is eco-friendly and soft for the skin.

“That means it can be used by anyone.”

Alex added: “As a result of these health benefits we are now part of an NHS trial to make it a health product.

“The NHS is trying to decrease the amount it spends every year by reducing the length of patient bed stays, which is currently at an average of 4.1 days and they want to reduce it to 3.5 days.

“People can get infections when they’re in hospital, which prolongs their stay, so they want to find a way to help to reduce this.

“So we have spoken to someone interested in our product’s health benefits and they are happy to trial it in one hospital and compare it to the generic tissue they are currently using.

“We are waiting on the results from that, which are expected relatively soon, but even if it helps by 5-10% in terms of making people healthier then that’s a huge win for us.”

Credit: Matt Grayson

While that’s going on Thelma is working with the X-Factor and OK magazine on getting the brand name out there - just in time for Cheeky Panda’s new advert airing on Channel 5 and Sky from October 12.

Thelma said: “X-Factor have approached us and asked if we could potentially provide the product for the contestants and judges to use.

“They are hand selecting products for the contestants to use in the house and obviously, it being a sustainable product, they want to align themselves with us.”

“OK magazine will have samples in their issue going out at the same time our new ad is set to be released and we will be in 250 Tesco stores in the next few weeks.”

Alex added: “Looking to the future, with bamboo as our backbone product, we are looking at baby wipes.

“A lot of companies have had a lot of stick for having plastic in their baby wipes so we have created a product that is purely bamboo, which a lot of people seem interested in.”